Zupponn wrote:Command Vehicles could use something like an ability called "Berate" where, once per turn, the commander in the command vehicle may berate a nearby minifig. The minifig gets a -6 penalty to his next roll. Then roll for success. If you succeed, your minifigs in the area get a +1 bonus. If you fail, your minifigs in the area get a -1 penalty.

Do you remember when we were talking about a Drill Sergeant unit? He was like an officer with a power drill and the ability to Scapegoat a squad member. Once a turn, he could blame any failure on one of his squad members, sacrifice him (by drilling a hole in his head), and then the rest of the squad would get a motivation bonus. (Later this got turned into Masters and Thralls in chapter 10, but I always liked this image of leadership.)

Honestly, I don't always pay complete attention to this part of the forum, especially with the 100+ questions that have been asked recently.

stubby wrote:123. They arrive visible. The main balancing factor on Stealth is the need to find those hidden spots where you can successfully cloak. So the bigger your vehicle, the hard it is to find a spot where you're hidden.

Quick-deploy fold-out panels?

Launching smoke grenades to mask their position? Hiding in a nebula?

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Zupponn wrote:Honestly, I don't always pay complete attention to this part of the forum, especially with the 100+ questions that have been asked recently.

I'm glad that my thought is unoriginal though.

Nah, the Drill Sergeant thing was from years ago, I don't even remember where we were discussing it.

Voin wrote:124: How would non-lethal damage work (for knocking people out and the capture of prisoners, for example)?

In BW2001 we kept track of lethal and non-lethal damage separately, but it turned out there was no point really. There's no real difference between killing a guy and knocking him out, unless you manage to chop his head off in the process. Just use a non-bladed/spiked/incendiary/etc weapon and say "I'm knocking this guy out," and that should be good enough.

You could also use a Movement damage effect to simulate other kinds of knocking someone out, like sleep gas or something.

Voin wrote:125: How would hyperdrives/warp-drives/FTL-drives work?

What would you be using them for in a battle? Warping vehicles in or out?

126. Do rockets or things fired out of launchers get MOMs (from the distance traveled to the target) to spend on collisions?

127. What exactly are the differences between firing a rocket and firing an explosive out of a launcher? The stats seem more or less the same.

128. From the 2010 Rulebook:"A Creation protected by Energy Shields spends an Energy Shield die to be Armored against incoming Damage"d6 is listed for standard shielding, and d10 for special shielding.But then it links to Bodily Protection, which states:"Shielding removes one die from each source of Damage, before the Damage is rolled."

So my question is: for energy shields: do I remove dice of damage like with minifig armor, or do I roll additional d6s/d10s and add them to the normal armor roll from SL?

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That sounds like stuff that happens outside of the turn-to-turn tactical battle. Are you asking about adding a strategic layer, or are you thinking of some way to incorporate this into the tactical game?

Voin wrote:126. Do rockets or things fired out of launchers get MOMs (from the distance traveled to the target) to spend on collisions?

127. What exactly are the differences between firing a rocket and firing an explosive out of a launcher? The stats seem more or less the same.

128. From the 2010 Rulebook:"A Creation protected by Energy Shields spends an Energy Shield die to be Armored against incoming Damage"d6 is listed for standard shielding, and d10 for special shielding.But then it links to Bodily Protection, which states:"Shielding removes one die from each source of Damage, before the Damage is rolled."

So my question is: for energy shields: do I remove dice of damage like with minifig armor, or do I roll additional d6s/d10s and add them to the normal armor roll from SL?

126. Rockets do Explosion Damage before they have a chance to deliver momentum. Everything else delivers Collision Damage.

127. An explosive fired out of a launcher does its own damage but otherwise uses the stats of the launcher. A rocket has its own stats.

128. The Energy Shields rules are from back when we still used to have Armored rules. That whole section of chapter 8 is getting scrapped and re-written.

That sounds like stuff that happens outside of the turn-to-turn tactical battle. Are you asking about adding a strategic layer, or are you thinking of some way to incorporate this into the tactical game?

Yes. Either or both would be awesome.

stubby wrote:126. Rockets do Explosion Damage before they have a chance to deliver momentum. Everything else delivers Collision Damage.

And if a pointy Charging Weapon (harpoons seem to be a popular choice) is stuck on the tip of the rocket/explosive, would it have a chance to poke a hole in the outer casing (via Collision Damage) right before the explosion goes off all over the juicy innards of the target?

Basically, the effect I'm trying to emulate is the common "penetrating rod" (heh) device seen in many anti-armor weapons that rams a breach in the armor, allowing the explosive to devastate more of the interior.

stubby wrote:128. The Energy Shields rules are from back when we still used to have Armored rules. That whole section of chapter 8 is getting scrapped and re-written.

So wait, is Armored/Shielded (taking away one type of every damage dice, save d12s) still kosher in BrikWars? And are they two different terms for the same effect?

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stubby wrote:That sounds like stuff that happens outside of the turn-to-turn tactical battle. Are you asking about adding a strategic layer, or are you thinking of some way to incorporate this into the tactical game?

Yes. Either or both would be awesome.

Could you give a couple of examples of some specific things you might want to use them for, in-game? I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly.

Voin wrote:

stubby wrote:126. Rockets do Explosion Damage before they have a chance to deliver momentum. Everything else delivers Collision Damage.

129. And if a pointy Charging Weapon (harpoons seem to be a popular choice) is stuck on the tip of the rocket/explosive, would it have a chance to poke a hole in the outer casing (via Collision Damage) right before the explosion goes off all over the juicy innards of the target?

129. Most explosives aren't large enough to have any Momentum dice, so they'll do zero Collision damage, but the little harpoons can do Hand Weapon damage I guess? It'd probably just be better to make some kind of house rule like "Armor Penetrating: this missile cancels a Shielded bonus (if any), otherwise no effect."

Voin wrote:130. So wait, is Armored/Shielded (taking away one type of every damage dice, save d12s) still kosher in BrikWars? And are they two different terms for the same effect?

130. Shielded is the new version. They're basically the same, but anything that still says Armored is from before the Armor/Shielding rules were unified and finalized.

stubby wrote:That sounds like stuff that happens outside of the turn-to-turn tactical battle. Are you asking about adding a strategic layer, or are you thinking of some way to incorporate this into the tactical game?

Yes. Either or both would be awesome.

Could you give a couple of examples of some specific things you might want to use them for, in-game? I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly.

Actually, I just realized the teleportation supplement could just as easily cover this on a tactical scale.

As for strategic stuff, I suppose I could house-rule a system where tactical movement scales up to "strategic movement" on a strategic scale (sorta like working backwards from the BrickWars starships mini scale). So, for example, 12" of flight in tactical scale could equal 12 big-ass units of flight on a strategic scale. FTL drives could be appropriate for crossing super-large-scale distances between planteries, star-stystems, and even galaxies, and if your hyperdrive gets damaged in battle, then you either have to spend time/action fixing it (while your engineers could have been putting that strategic action to use building bigger weapons), or hitch a ride with someone who didn't get their hyperdrive slagged into bits.

stubby wrote:129. Most explosives aren't large enough to have any Momentum dice, so they'll do zero Collision damage, but the little harpoons can do Hand Weapon damage I guess? It'd probably just be better to make some kind of house rule like "Armor Penetrating: this missile cancels a Shielded bonus (if any), otherwise no effect."

So like adding an armor-penetrating d12? With how expensive those are, maybe I'd better add them to the launcher to "bestow" the effect on the launched explosive, rather than spending the 7CP on each round or ordnance.

But what I was thinking with the harpoon was a "poor man's armor-piercing round". I mean, armor plating doesn't get used that often anyway.

2010 Rulebook wrote:For most Creations, only the outer Structural shell uses the full Armor rating. The Structure Level of Surface elements, interior components, and exposed joints and hinges are one Structure Level lower than the main Structure

So if I'm targeting a 2d10 APC, and that little harpoon tip rolls its 1d6 component damage higher than the 2d10 armor rating (which, with criticals, happens often enough to consider), then the explosive that follows can devastate the 1d10 squishiness of anything inside.

stubby wrote:130. Shielded is the new version. They're basically the same, but anything that still says Armored is from before the Armor/Shielding rules were unified and finalized.

So my question is: if my SL2 starfighter has 1d6 energy shielding, and an attack is incoming, do I roll 2d10+1d6 for Armor, or do I ignore one die of every type (save d12s), and then roll 2d10 Armor as usual? Are energy shield dice rolled, or are they passive "extra armor value"?

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I don't think the Scout's Stealth ability is what most people have in mind for "stealth vehicles". With the scout, they just hide better and sneak around when no one's looking.

For most popular fiction "stealth vehicles", perhaps a better descriptor would be "Cloaked" (as in "suddenly disappears from view"), and perhaps it would be better to buy it by the inch like we do for Armor Plating or Field Hazards.

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I don't think the Scout's Stealth ability is what most people have in mind for "stealth vehicles". With the scout, they just hide better and sneak around when no one's looking.

Who says a tank can't sneak?

You haven't been around many operational tanks, I take it?

Comrade, I hail originally from Russia, and when we had our military parades, you could hear the sound of the rolling armor even over the patriotic music of the brass bands. Tanks are not a subtle technology.

But back to the to the topic at hand - modern "stealth" vehicles don't so much "go invisible" as they are designed to be hard for radar and other methods of detection to pick up, quieter, less obvious heat signature, or sometimes just a plain ol' camo paintjob.

Granted, BrikWars does not limit itself to the realm or what's possible/plausible/logical/decent, so more sci-fi-esque "Cloaking" tropes should not only be expected, but welcomed for bringing more awesome.

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I don't think the Scout's Stealth ability is what most people have in mind for "stealth vehicles". With the scout, they just hide better and sneak around when no one's looking.

For most popular fiction "stealth vehicles", perhaps a better descriptor would be "Cloaked" (as in "suddenly disappears from view"), and perhaps it would be better to buy it by the inch like we do for Armor Plating or Field Hazards.

Nah, Stealth is fine. If you've put a bunch of camouflage all over your tank and are sneaking it up to enemy lines, then it works exactly like Stealth. If you've just cloaked your Romulan Warbird, then you want to do it somewhere where the Enterprise doesn't notice it, otherwise they're tracking your ion signature or something the whole time.

Cloaking is tough to balance, mechanics-wise; it's very tricky not to make it OP. The Stealth rules are the best solution we've come up with so far, but I'm open to more ideas if you've got any.

stubby wrote:129. Most explosives aren't large enough to have any Momentum dice, so they'll do zero Collision damage, but the little harpoons can do Hand Weapon damage I guess? It'd probably just be better to make some kind of house rule like "Armor Penetrating: this missile cancels a Shielded bonus (if any), otherwise no effect."

So like adding an armor-penetrating d12? With how expensive those are, maybe I'd better add them to the launcher to "bestow" the effect on the launched explosive, rather than spending the 7CP on each round or ordnance.

But what I was thinking with the harpoon was a "poor man's armor-piercing round". I mean, armor plating doesn't get used that often anyway.

stubby wrote:130. Shielded is the new version. They're basically the same, but anything that still says Armored is from before the Armor/Shielding rules were unified and finalized.

So my question is: if my SL2 starfighter has 1d6 energy shielding, and an attack is incoming, do I roll 2d10+1d6 for Armor, or do I ignore one die of every type (save d12s), and then roll 2d10 Armor as usual? Are energy shield dice rolled, or are they passive "extra armor value"?

For energy shields, the dice just act as counters for how many levels of Shielded you can put up against any single attack. The 1d6es and 1d10s used to actually add 1d6 and 1d10, but in the current rules there's no reason for them to be any specific dice; they might as well be pebbles or something. Like I said, this section is due for a big overhaul.